12 Days of Christmas: Christmas Stockings Tutorial

I figured what better way to start off my 12 days of Christmas than with a tutorial on how to make Christmas stockings. My family somehow manages to lose their stockings each year and we were down to a pretty rag-tag group of mismatched leftover ones. So I decided to make everyone new ones this year! 

Our stockings don't stay in one place since we all live in different locations so instead of having them match each other, I made a different one for each person based on what I thought they would like. I did try to unify them a bit by adding a white cuff and accents. 

Here's what you'll need:

• Fabrics for the outside of the stockings. I chose flannel and I bought 1/2 yard of each if it was an allover pattern, 2/3 yard if the pattern was 1-way.
• White fabric (again I chose flannel) for the cuff, heel, and toe. I used 1/4 yard for each stocking.
• Fabric puffy paint in colors to match your fabrics
• Patterns for stocking, heel, and toe. Find patterns here.
• Pins, scissors, thread, sewing machine.

Optional: I found a fun font and printed out each person's name on sheets of paper. I then traced over that (process is explained below).

I wanted to make sure the names looked fairly uniform so I looked online and found a great font that I wanted to use on the stockings. I made sure to print them all the same size and I made them bold so that I could really see the names through the fabric. For the cuffs, I cut 2 9"x11" pieces of fabric (I didn't attach a pattern for this since it's just a simple rectangle). I laid one of the pieces on top of the paper and used the fabric paint to trace the letters. (If you like your handwriting and aren't worried about them looking the same, free-hand the names onto the fabric.) I did all the cuffs ahead of time so the paint was completely set before I continued with the stockings.

Next, you'll want to cut out the patterns. You'll need two pieces of the stocking fabric and two each of the heel and toe (cut out of the white accent fabric). The toe and heel both have two layers of the white since you could see the base fabric with just one layer. I laid the cut pieces onto the stocking base so you can get an idea of what the finished product will look like.

Now you'll need to sew the heel and toe onto one of the stocking pieces. Make sure you're using the same side for all your stockings so they all face the same way. First I used a straight stitch to tack the pieces to the base, then I used a small zigzag/button stitch to applique the edges down. 

I forgot to take a picture, but you'll need to sew the front stocking piece to the back making sure the right sides are together. Turn the stocking right side out after you've finished.

The next part is in two steps. First you'll need to sew the two cuff pieces together (again, right sides together and turn right side out when finished) and fold the sewn cuff in half with the name on the outside. The best way I can think to explain this is you'll fold the bottom edge up so it meets the top edge. You'll have a skinny tube if you've folded it correctly.

Next you'll need to pin the cuff to the stocking. This is where it gets a teensy bit tricky to explain because you have to make sure you're pinning the side of the cuff with the name to the front of the stocking. The cuff is pinned to the inside of the stocking, with the name facing the wrong side of the front part of the stocking. Hopefully the photo above shows that alright. Sew the cuff and flip right side out.

And you're done! This is my first tutorial, so please let me know if there's anything you liked or you think I could do better. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions and thanks for looking!